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The Return of Activist Journalism in China

Haiyan Wang

July 18, 2012

We journalists in China live in a paradoxical universe. There is much you in the west know that we do not, though some of it we can pick up from those websites to which we have access. We pick up news, for example, about the fate of Bo Xilai, the former party secretary of Chongqing, now held – somewhere – for investigation over “serious disciplinary violations”. But we cannot report on it; cannot report the divisions that western media say are appearing in the leadership. We could not even report the sacking of Mr. Bo in March (the front page story in the Financial Times!). Yet it is true Chinese journalism has changed greatly since Deng Xiaoping decreed in the 1980s that the media could be partly privatised and thus had to respond more to the wishes of their audience.